


Prayer Will Give You a Calmplex

by cissues



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Catholic Guilt, Eddie Kaspbrak-centric, Eddie Month!, Eddie is Catholic and he's using prayer to cope, Gay Panic, Homophobia, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Slash, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissues/pseuds/cissues
Summary: On his way to Derry, Eddie thinks about memory and past and trauma, and he prays.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Prayer Will Give You a Calmplex

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear, I am NOT Catholic nor Christian in any sense and do not mean for this to be like a cool, hip way to get the youth to want to go to church and accept Christ into their hearts, I just love Catholic iconography and the saints and I love the idea of Eddie's ancient Latina grandmother gifting him with a Saint's pendant and him just like latching onto it. Also the title is inspired by a very funny church sign I kept seeing on my way to work.
> 
> Anyway, please leave a comment and/or kudo if you liked it! Also you can follow me @peachieweech on twitter where I talk about reddie constantly, or beepbeepbitchboy on tumblr where I reblog reddie sometimes. Thank u!!!
> 
> WARNINGS:  
Explicit talk about HIV and death associated with HIV AND homophobia/insensitivity about HIV. It's not a super long part, but it's definitely there.  
ALSO  
Homophobia, panic attack description, and emetophobia warnings!

At nearly three in the morning. The roads of the highway are an eerie sort of thing.

Eddie has heard of this time of night being referred to as “The Witching Hour”. He can’t exactly pinpoint where or why, perhaps during casual conversation at work, maybe buried deep in the dredges of memories that have started to slowly return, bottlenecked and irritatingly vague, ever since that phone call from Mike  _ fucking _ Hanlon.

He remembers the idea of evenings spent in his childhood home, older women tittering about the sterile livingroom in which his mother had spent most of her free time. She’d had these women -  _ women from the church  _ \- over to bake cookies for fundraisers, read passages from the bible and, occasionally, pray.

Sonia Kaspbrak filters into his mind in staggered, clipped moments that he realizes begin to overlay themselves atop memories of his wife. The twin tinny calls of _Eddie-bear_. At nearly three forty five, Eddie pulls off to the side of the road to retch into the tall grasses. It’s not as if he’d forgotten his mother, but her death had wiped away many of the associations with _fucking_ _Derry_ and, in turn, his childhood there; the trauma that was intimately intwined with growing up, with an entire life that he’d forgotten.

Eddie stays leaning against the side of his rented reasonable sedan for a lot longer than he means to.

Mike had told him to be back in  _ fucking Derry _ by the next day ( _ later today, really, at this point _ ) and he’s already been on the road for a few hours, which means he only has between four and five hours left to drive. That’s plenty of time, as he’s sure Mike wasn’t expecting him to be there by dawn, so he lets himself look up at the pitch black sky, dotted occasionally with stars that are bright enough to poke through the light pollution and lingering smog.

He should brush his teeth.

Eddie wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, grimacing at the lingering taste of bile and having to swallow against the wave of nausea it induces. He digs around in his backseat for his toiletries bag and produces his toothbrush and toothpaste.

As he spits mint-flavored foam into the dirt, his mind wanders back to the memories that continue to push into him. Back to the sterile house, to the prayer circles.

Sonia’s friend from New York contracted HIV in 1988. She had told Eddie that her friend had a hangnail and came into contact with infected blood on a subway. She told him never to touch anyone on a subway, and she told him never to touch someone who looked like they could be sick.

He remembers rattling that fact off to someone one day while walking through the streets of his hometown, but he can’t exactly remember why that particular subject had come up, or who he had been talking to in the first place. In 1990, Sonia’s “friend” from New York died from health complications. Sonia did not go to his funeral, Sonia held a prayer circle in her home instead. She had snatched up Eddie’s hand, eyes teary, as she ushered the other women around her to bow their heads. He remembers, in bits and pieces, the words they’d used.  _ Forgive him for his sins, lord. He was sick, lord. He had left your light, lord. Bless them, lord. Fix them, lord. Cure them, lord. _

At the time, Eddie had simply muttered the  _ amen _ s along with the rest of the women, unsure about what exactly they were praying about. Through the lens of adult understanding, Eddie’s breath caught in his chest momentarily and new memories began to surface, unbidden.

There are flashes of fear, of shame, of pacing his room and wringing his hands as he thinks that  _ yes _ this time he’ll tell her. This time he won’t be a coward. Of words dying on his tongue the moment he faces her. There’s stretches of long limbs and bright shirts and brighter smiles. There’s friendly punches and wrestling and noogies and  _ touch, any excuse to touch _ . There’s a name he can’t find that fits next to his, seamless… - _ andEddie -andEddie -andEddie _ . It feels like an itch under his skin that he can’t scratch, that makes him feel too warm and too electrified to think straight. He’s vibrating with a sudden and heavy knowledge.

The tears are what come next.

Typical.

Eddie wipes angrily at his eyes, hands balled up into fists and digging against his eyelids in an effort to stop whatever he’s doing. He’s shaking, his body rocking slightly in the driver’s side of his car. The car is still parked. The road is still empty.

When he’d left New York, Myra had been at his heels, shouting and crying and insisting that she be told where he’s going. He hadn’t wanted to and never did tell her and a part of him didn’t even want to look back as he climbed into his reasonable four-door sedan that  _ she  _ had chosen for him from the rental company’s lot, and drove off. He hadn’t even noticed that his wedding ring was tucked into his pocket and not around his finger where it usually was. When he looked at his luggage, the amount of clothes he’d packed for what he was expecting to be only a few days trip, his heart began to hiccup uncomfortably with the realization that he isn’t planning on going back to Myra. 

The memories and the realizations slither against his thoughts so everything feels crowded and foggy and he should be  _ driving _ already. Already nearly an hour has gone by and if the panic attacks in quick succession don’t have an end in sight, then he might never make it to Derry.

_ That would be for the best _ , his mind supplies and he knows that its right, but he doesn’t know  _ why _ .

He does some breathing exercises that his therapist taught him once. Just simple, counted breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Then, as if his body is acting on instinct, his hands fold together in front of him and he begins to pray.

His voice is trembling when it finally leaves his lips.

“Uh, hey… Jesus. I guess. Or, or… actually... hey Raphael, remember me? It’s been, um… it’s been years, huh? I used to -  _ fuck _ \- I used to have your pendant! Shit, I forgot about that! My grandma gave it to me when I was like five!” Eddie lets out a hysterical sort of laughter at the stupid things he’d forgotten. Of his grandmother handing him a pendant, telling him to pray to the Archangel Raphael to heal him, to make him feel better, and to protect him. He didn’t see much of his grandmother, his mom despising nursing homes, so this gift felt so precious when she gave it to him that he wore it around his neck for years after that before it got lost in- somewhere. The sewers? At someone’s house? He can’t remember.

“So, I know this isn’t really your job, but I’m kind of freaking the fuck out and I can’t remember any of the other saints right now, so... please. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I think I just left my wife because I think I might have always been… I mean, I  _ know _ I’ve always been-- always been  _ different _ . It’s not like I forgot  _ that _ I just-- it feels more real, now. Or-- no… it’s always felt real. It just feels less-- it feels less  _ scary _ . And now I kind of know why it always  _ did _ feel scary ‘cause, I mean, I guess my mom was a fucking lunatic and I completely fucking forgot somehow. For like…  _ years _ . I forgot for  _ years _ that my mom would-  _ fuck _ she told me not to, like,  _ touch boys _ . She fucking knew, didn’t she. I never even had to tell her, she already knew and kept trying to fucking… fucking  _ fix me _ . Oh my  _ god _ …”

Eddie trails off, eyes wide and hands only loosely intwined against the top of the steering wheel.

“God, she'd liked Myra  _ so much _ .”

Then Eddie’s crying again, this time quieter and he only purses his lips and lets the tears fall silently. After a moment he drops his forehead against his hands.

“Well, guess that answers that, huh? Hey, who’s the patron saint of--” He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “Nevermind. I’ll Google it later.”

Eddie stays like that for an undetermined amount of time, head resting against the hands on his steering wheel and eyes closed, trying to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. He thinks about Myra and he thinks about Sonia and he thinks about the town that lies only a few hours away down this still-deserted strip of highway. He thinks about how he felt when Mike called, the rush of memories that stalled out his brain and distracted him to the point of running through a red light and into oncoming traffic. He thinks about the bone-deep fear, fear that had lingered in his marrow for twenty seven years. He thinks about the faces that flashed, only for a moment, through his mind and how his heart wouldn’t stop pounding against his ribcage at the question of who they were. He thinks about a too-wide smile and too-big glasses and a too-loud voice that had no name that made his throat dry and that had been running circles through his thoughts ever since the phone call. He thinks about what could possibly be waiting for him in Derry and then he stops thinking about what could be waiting for him in Derry, as if the thought had been immediately pinched off and discarded. He sighs and his whole body shudders, suddenly too-full of emotions that have no source and a distinct direction that his heart seemed to be pulling him in. His mouth feels full of cotton, but he says,

“Um, well, thanks for listening, I guess. I wanted to ask if you could,” he clears his throat and swallows past the lump there, “if you could just, like, keep an eye on me? This feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do somehow and I could use some heavenly protection or direction or whatever. Feel free to delegate, if you need to. Again, not your job to look after neurotic assholes. I just… it would be nice to know that I have someone on my side, I guess.”

Eddie’s face twists and he sniffles, swiping at his nose absently.

“Oh, uh, amen. Or whatever.”

Somehow, his body feels more static after that, less like he’s about vibrate out of his seat. His limbs feel a little numb and his face tingles strangely, but when he starts his car again at nearly five in the morning, he feels like the light breaking against the tree line is meant for him.

**Author's Note:**

> ps: Saint Raphael the Archangel is the patron saint of healing and catholics will sometimes carry around little saint pendants to pray over if they have a patron saint or someone they pray to a lot.
> 
> Again! Comment n kudo if u wanna! Thank you so much for reading!! Follow me on twitter!!! Love you!


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